green building

Eco Pole Houses in the South Pacific

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“Construction of an ecological and sustainable Pole House village on a remote oceanfront site in the South Pacific. Only local materials, gleaned entirely from the site, were utilized in the construction, including bamboo, pine, mangrove, guava, river rock, a variety of tropical hardwoods and coconut (husk for lashings, fronds for roofing, and trunks rafters and … Read more

Stonemaker Machine

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“CEO Gary Troke shows us his amazing stonemaker machine. It is a mobile block, brick and wet cement making machine. It is capable of making any type of brick or block imaginable. It is also an amazing compressed earth block machine (CEB machine). It can use stone/rubble/dirt to make the product.”

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Mechanized Rapidobe

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In addition to helping build your home, tractors also have lots of other uses around a homestead.
In addition to helping build your home, tractors also have lots of other uses around a homestead.

Abe from Vela Creations and I have been exchanging ideas about his new Rapidobe building system. The biggest strong point for rapidobe is its speed and ease of construction. You could speed the process along even more with a Bobcat or tractor to dump soil into the wall cavity, and then have several workers for tamping. Abe tamps the soil while standing inside the wall.

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Architects Seek Funding for Namibia Sandbag Igloos

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“Are sandbag igloos the key to solving housing problems in dry regions? Architects Nicola Du Pisanie of Stonewood Design and Ross McDonald of Alison Brooks Architects discuss a proposed project to build sandbag, or super adobe, igloo homes in the Namibian desert during a London Festival of Architecture talk at the Building Centre in London.” … Read more

A Material and Structural Analysis of Earthbag Housing

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Stress strain graph from tensile tests showing relationship between various types of bags.
Stress strain graph from tensile tests showing relationship between various types of bags.

Nikul Vadgama from the University of Bath has completed one of the most extensive reports so far on earthbag building. In order for earthbag to enter mainstream building practice, engineering tests and analysis like this are needed by engineers, architects and code officials.

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